Stalemate
by Jasmine-N-Leaves
Summary: After a Marine wakes up in a hospital after an allergic reaction caused by an unknown drug, the team is sent in to find out who did it and why. Things get complicated after that. Rated T, just in case.
1. Trouble?

A/N: So, here is a new story. I know it's been a looong time since I posted anything on my favourite show, but moving towns, and states has not helped. It takes me a long time to settle, and its hard to know what the show is doing when I don't have access to a TV. So I've had to wait until the DVDs come out. To that end, I've seen nothing of the current season. This story I guess takes place between season 7 and 8.

I think this is the longest A/N I've written, so I'll end it and let you enjoy my story.

* * *

Deeks watched as Callen spoke to a woman wearing something more suited to a beach then a city street, but then again, it was LA. The bright pink bikini was partially hidden beneath the older man's jacket, having given it to her to help with the slight early morning chill that was blowing in off the ocean. Or the fact that she was still recovering from an allergic reaction.

The case had started a week earlier when a Marine in the intelligence sector had woken up at the hospital and the last thing he remembered was having fun at the stripper bar. Blood tests showed he had been drugged with some kind of new drug.

NCIS:LA NCIS:LA NCIS:LA NCIS:LA NCIS:LA

The odd sound bounced around the building as Eric came to the top of the stairs, a didgeridoo held in his hands. "Case up guys, and ladies." He added at seeing Nell and Kensi talking. He headed back into the ops room as the other agents made their way inside.

"I'm telling you Callen, you really need to join us one morning, you'd enjoy it." Kensi said as they entered. She had been trying to convince Callen to join her, Deeks, Nell and Eric for a morning run and breakfast after, all morning. Sam had declined as he had his own schedule and it included his kids.

"Kens, I appreciate the offer, but I'm good. I spend most of my time with you guys at work, and not saying that I don't mind but why would I give up my alone time to spend more of it with you?"

"Because you could use the exercise if nothing else, partner." Sam spoke up as he looked back over his shoulder at his team mates. Callen as always allowing Kensi to proceed him while he brought up the rear. He wondered when the others would notice that he would either head in first or be the last of their little group when they headed up, always watching their six, or taking point to watch for trouble.

The others chuckled at that as they settled into their customary spots around the light table, staring at the screen as Eric and Nell started the briefing.

Nell started. "NCIS got a call this morning from Captain Stanford at Pendleton's Intelligence centre. One of his men was dumped outside a hospital two nights ago suffering from anaphylactic shock. It was only this morning that he was awake enough to inform doctors who he was. Blood tests show he was dosed with a new drug called Stalemate on the streets."

Eric continued, reading from his tablet as he talked. "Gives you one hell of a buzz; only thing is, not only do you not remember anything, but there are reports of people telling all and sundry anything they're asked while under its influence. Kind of a mix between Ecstasy, Ketamine and Scopolamine and a couple of other nasty ones."

"Director Vance wants to find out who is behind this and what if anything was divulged." Hetty suddenly spoke up, startling the younger field team. "We need to put a lid on this, and fast. The marine in question is still in the hospital. We need to know what he was involved in. I want a handle on this before it gets plastered all over the internet. Hop to it people."

With that, she headed off, back to her office to call Vance and tell him what she knew.

Callen watched her a moment before turning back to his team. "Kensi, Deeks, find out from his friends what they were doing and how they got separated. Also talk to Captain Stanford. Find out what he was involved in."

The younger pair nodded and headed out, bantering about the music they wanted to listen to. After a few minutes more getting information from Nell and Eric about the marine, Callen and Sam left for the hospital.

They entered the hospital room housing Staff Sargent Robin Tash. The man looked pale, just as the doctor warned them. Apparently he had a bad reaction to one of the drugs they injected into him, which lead him to being dropped off at the hospital, after someone had hit him with an epipen. Who it was and why they had let him live, they had no idea, the cameras not picking up anything, other than it was a woman. Hopefully the SSgt would be able to fill in the blanks.

"SSgt Tash? Agents Callen and Hannah, NCIS." Callen said as he and Sam entered the room. The SSgt looked at the two men and nodded as they came in.

"Don't know what I can tell you, I don't remember anything." He said as he settled into a sitting position. The man's Hispanic coloured skin was paler than the photos they had of the man, showing how bad he had been.

"You might remember more than you think. Start with the last thing you remember." Sam said as he stood next to the bed. His military aura flowed around him, and the SSgt could sense it; sitting up a little more and answering in a manner similar to a report to a superior.

"A couple of buddies had found a, … an exotic bar, a few weeks before and were pestering me to come with them on Saturday night." He reddened slightly and Sam threw a small smile to the man and to Callen in the corner facing the door.

The man continued his tale, telling them that after a couple of hours, one of the girls had attempted to get him to leave the bar, however he couldn't remember which one. He said that she didn't want him to leave with her, just to 'get out' were her exact words. A few hours after that, he felt groggy, despite only having three drinks and couldn't remember anything from then on. He got the feeling of being in a cold place, surrounded by concrete walls but that was all until he woke up in the hospital.

Callen and Sam asked further questions but were unable to get anything more. They thanked the SSgt and left the hospital. It was once they were back in Callen's Mercedes that they spoke.

"So they had him from Saturday night until early Monday morning. That's a lot of time, G." Sam started.

Callen nodded, "This stripper," he continued as he took a right towards the SSgt's home. While Tash had a bunk at the base, he spent most of his weekends at his home in Los Angeles.

"We need to find her. She knew what was going to happen to him, or at the very least overheard something." Sam finished.

"The other thing is what made them chose him. Several of his colleges work in the same area." Callen continued as Sam sent Kensi a text about the woman the Sargent mentioned to see if his co-workers remember her and what set them apart.

* * *

A/N2:This chapter is short, but there are some longer ones coming. This story is finished, so I'll try and post a chapter a week.

Also, if there are any sciencey folks reading this, or you know one, I would love some help on another story. It involves holograms. And the Washington NCIS crew, before DiNozzo leaves. (Haven't seen any of season 13 or 14 of that show.) Please PM me if you can help.


	2. Word Games

A/N I apologise for the insane delay in posting this. A lot of things have happened in the last few weeks and this story, I am sad to say, was not on the list of things to do. So, I will post a couple of chapters today to make up for it. Enjoy! 😊

Also, I'm not too sure when it comes to ranks, so if I have them wrong, please let me know. I have looked online about them, but I may still have them wrong.

* * *

Kensi read the text from Sam while Deeks drove, having won 3 out of 5 games of roe-sham-bow. They discussed how they were going to handle the questioning of the men when Deeks suddenly yelled out "EQUIPMENT, QUATERMASTER, MASQUERADES!" He thumped the wheel in joy. "Try beating that!" he said as he turned to Kensi.

Deeks had started the game of taking the letters from license plates they passed and using them in words. The rules; each word has to start with one of the letters, all the letters on the plate must be in the word, minimum of six letters, and one word for each letter if possible; all within 30 seconds. So far, Deeks was in the lead with a spectacular combo of BWZ, WHIZBANG. Kensi couldn't think of anything for several seconds before coming up with words for the letters Q and M, but failed to think of another for E, thus Deeks won again, a fact he was rather pleased with.

After telling the guard at the gate they wanted to see Captain Stanford and the men who were with the SSgt that night, the two pulled up outside one of the buildings where a man with captain's marks on his shoulders waited for them. They introduced themselves as they approached.

"Agent Blye, Detective Deeks, thank you for coming so quickly. I've got the men waiting inside for you. As ordered, they've not spoken to each other since SSgt Tash was found." He shook their hands then led the way inside.

"They said anything about what happened that night?" Deeks asked as they entered.

He shook his head and opened the door to a room with a table and three chairs in the centre of it. "You can use this room. The men are through the other door with a guard. Have the guard contact me when you're ready for me."

Kensi nodded as they readied the table. They got themselves a drink before Deeks opened the door for the first of the men.

The next couple of hours passed quickly; since the men knew they had done nothing wrong, they were happy to tell the pair the events. It helped that Kensi was a regular visitor to Pendleton, though a shock that she was an NCIS agent and not just a reservist. Of the seven men they interviewed, four of them had either seen her around or trained with her on the fields.

"There were a lot of women there. They were all trying to get someone's attention."

"I remember seeing the SSgt with a woman who liked pink."

"Tash liked brunettes, but I think I saw him with a red head."

"None of us (indicating with his arms, the others outside waiting) have partners so we weren't going to be picky."

"Tash has a girlfriend, so I don't think he was looking to be with someone that night. He was just with us to watch our backs and the girls. I don't think he even drank that much."

"Robin was making sure that we didn't get into too much trouble. We've done it before and he was just looking out for us."

"He watched our backs, but when he needed us, we weren't watching his."

The men were having too much of a good time to notice when Tash left, but the last any of them saw him was around 0130 Saturday morning, when he bought them one last round of drinks. They were all feeling bad about not realising that he was missing from their group.

Deeks nodded to the guard after thanking the last of them and closing the door. "Well, we learnt one thing that made him a target."

"He had a girlfriend. Someone he mightn't have told if he woke up with another woman next to him." Kensi finished the statement as they followed the guard to Stanford's office. "The plan must have been to let the drugs run their course and have him wake up next to one of the girls. He thinks one of his drinks got spiked and he slept with another woman. Not wanting his girlfriend to know about it, he'd keep quiet."

"Only, the SSgt was allergic to something they drugged him with, causing him to be dropped at the hospital. Now all we have to do is find our good Samaritan with a knowledge of first aid." Deeks finished as they entered the office of the captain.

"I hope the men were helpful." Philip Stanford said, as the three sat.

"What they were able to tell us was. What kind of work did the SSgt do here?" Kensi asked. She and Deeks agreed that she would take the lead as she was known on the base. Deeks took the seat next to her and took notes.

The next hour was productive as they learnt that the SSgt was in charge of a task force that was tracking the monies used by a terror group that was starting to make waves. The problem was, no-one knew where they were, though Tash had his suspicions that it was in LA. Chatter was starting to get loud that something was going to happen. Stanford said that Tash had told him he had found something, but was waiting on conformation from his source before he brought it to the Captain.

Stanford gave Kensi and Deeks permission to look through his desk for information on the location of the source at the very least, but not his computer. Too much sensitive information, and the SSgt was old school when it came to record keeping until it was verified.

Which meant paper, and lots of it when they opened his desk. Not only was there a lot of pages from legal pads, but scraps from drink order pages from bars that had further notes on them. Seeing the codes and realising that they weren't going to be able to read the notes with ease, Kensi and Deeks bundled them up and headed back to the car. Deeks phoned ops and clued them in on what they had found while Kensi drove.

"Ok, thanks Nell, we'll head back to the hospital." Sam said. Closing his phone, he went to look for his partner. He found the shorter man in the bathroom, looking through the medicine cabinet behind the mirror. "Seems the SSgt is old school like you, writes everything down on paper before committing it to computer. Kensi and Deeks have a stack of papers they're taking back to ops to see if they can break the code he's written them in."

"Unless we head back to the hospital and ask him. What they find out about his work?" Callen asked as he pulled his head back and closed the mirror. Joining his partner, Sam filled him in on what the younger pair had found out as they headed back to Callen's car. Just before they left Tash's house, Callen called Deeks.

"HEADACHE, ECHOED, CHAPPED." The shaggy one of the pair answered.

"What?" Sam asked.

Callen just rolled his eyes before speaking, Deeks playing the game with him while on stakeout the week before. "Make a start on those pages, maybe something will stand out. Who's winning?"

"TESTED, ESTABLISHED, STATED." Came Deeks' reply.

"Never mind." Callen said as he chuckled and hug up.

"What was that all about?" Sam asked as Callen started the car and headed back to the hospital.

"Licence plate word game." The ride to the hospital passed quickly as Callen found that when on the clock, Sam was bad at coming up with words on the spot. "Being a Mathlete not so helpful with word games is it partner?" Callen said, the winner of the little game as they entered the hospital.

"Junior Math Olympian." Came the reply.

They left and headed back to the mission an hour later, after informing the wonder twins of the information to break the code the SSgt used for his notes. Tash had remembered a couple of things by that point. The name of the bar they went too, which confirmed what his workmates had told the others; and that the woman was called May.

He also told them all the suspicions he had about the new group and where he thought they were. He went on to mention the group they started with until they decided to make their own way. Callen and Sam whistled as they heard the name, each knowing that if that was who they started with, they could be a whole lot worse now.

* * *

A/N: Sorry again about the delay. (Ducks flying objects) I will post another chapter after this.


	3. Information Gathering

A/N: here is the second promised chapter.

* * *

The four met up back at the mission later that afternoon, with Callen and Sam bringing a late lunch for all just as Kensi and Deeks got back from Pendleton. They ate quickly as Nell and Eric had found some information about the bar. They headed back up to the ops room as Nell brought the screens to life.

"Been opened for three years with new owners taking over three months ago, this is the second time someone has shown up with no memory of their weekend after going to 'Club Bounce'." Nell started.

"The first person was Officer Jenkins, on holiday from Las Vegas. He woke up in a hotel room that wasn't his with one of the girls from the bar telling him all about their wild weekend." Eric continued. "Not one to trust the word of a stripper, he went to the hospital and had blood work done. When he got the results, he contacted his boss at the LVPD and told him everything."

"Officer Jenkins' task force leader managed to change the time of a raid and they were able to round up most of the gang they were targeting." Hetty suddenly spoke up from near the door. She stepped closer and pointed to the screen showing the bar. "We now have two confirmed cases of highly placed people being drugged. People with access to intel that others are wanting."

"Dates, places, people involved in raids, undercover operations." Callen stood straighter as the implications became clear. "Nell, I want deeper background done on the owners, past and present. Find out why the old owners sold the place and how the new ones got it."

Nell nodded and sat at her computer while shifting live feeds from cameras surrounding the front entrance to the main screen.

"Kensi, you and Deeks head over there and see if any of the girls from Friday night are working tonight. Being a week night, I don't think many will be on." Callen continued, turning to the other pair.

"Slight problem with me going if you don't want to tip your hand that you suspect them." Deeks said, slipping around the table and pointing to a man at the door. "I arrested him a couple of years before I made detective. He didn't go quietly and we got into it pretty good. He'll recognise me in a heartbeat. Tagget, Shannon 'Blue' Tagget."

Eric pulled up the man's info before Callen could ask. "Shannon 'Blue' Tagget, 35 years of age. While there isn't much on his rap sheet he hasn't done, the largest number are for B&E, and fighting, where he got the nickname from." The surfing tech looked up at the screen as he spoke. "Started working for Bounce just after the new owners, brothers Luke and Lennon McAllen, took over. Seems Tagget and the younger brother, Luke spent time together in juvie. Must have kept in touch."

"Lennon got a degree in business ten years ago and owns a chain of successful bars on the east coast and another bar in Toronto. This is his first venture here, and the first joint one with his brother. Might be trying to get him to turn his life around." Nell added as she looked into the brothers. "He also has invested capital and is part owner of several clubs in London, Dubai and Frankfurt." She added, surprise showing at the last city.

"Any reports like what cropped up on Friday?" Callen asked as he looked over the information that the techs had slid onto the light table.

"Nothing else in LA other than the Jenkins case, but I've found a couple of cases in Canada. I've sent an email to other agencies around the world to see if they've come across anything, and see if it ties in with Lennon's bar." Nell said as she looked at reports from the FBI that matched, "We might not hear anything for a day or two."

Callen nodded, "Sam, Kensi, head over to the bar. Deeks and I will work on the notes you picked up from Pendleton."

"Really, Callen?" Deeks whined, clearly wanting to check out the women.

"Look at it this way Deeks, if Tagget isn't on tonight, then we'll go." Callen said as he walked out the doors. Watching his younger college's face light up at that, he chuckled and headed downstairs as Eric called out that he'd sent the scanned pages and their translations to the downstairs light table.

Kensi and Sam followed them out and after a moment's thought, Kensi led Sam to his Charger. "You letting me drive?" Sam asked, knowing just how much of a control freak she was, especially when it came to driving. The only reason Deeks had been given the opportunity to drive to the base that morning, was because Callen had said to just before they left, after he whined about being in the car for so long. Even then, she had challenged Deeks to the game of Ro-Sham-Bo.

"It actually felt good having someone else driving, and Deeks was really good, even with that silly game he started up."

"Callen put him onto it last week during that stakeout. He's pretty good at it." Sam said as he started the car.

"MANAGER, REGIMENT, GARMENT." Kensi suddenly said as they reached the main road. Sam looked at her and a playful smile touched his lips, as he took up the challenge.

They reached the bar late afternoon; Kensi winning, with Blue still on duty. As Deeks had pointed out, not wanting to tip the hands of anyone, Kensi and Sam had come up with a story that would work.

They entered a few minutes apart and blinked a couple of times to get use to the darkness. On stage were a couple of girls entertaining the early crowd. Knowing girls stuck to one or two outfits, they each looked for the fluro pink the dancer known as May wore. Kensi didn't see it so wandered over to the stage to talk to the girls, while Sam headed to the bar.

"Afternoon, what can I get you?" The tall man behind the bar asked.

Sam placed his order. "My buddy mentioned this place to me for my Batchelor Party. You cater for things like that?"

While Sam spoke to the bartender, Kensi had waited until one of the girls finished their routine.

"Hi there." She said as one of them came off stage. "Can you help me?"

The woman, wearing an electric blue bra and panties, looked her over and said "You'd do well in green."

Kensi playing her part, pretended to blush and shook her head. "Oh, no, not about a job. I was looking for someone. An old friend. Another girlfriend said that she saw her here a few days ago. I think the name she was using was May?" Kensi followed her as she made her way toward one of the dressing areas.

"The Australian. How's it that you know her?" Electric looked at her funny and Kensi quickly thought up a partial truth.

"Military brat, moved around a lot. Spent time there and met at school."

She nodded and said "She usually works Thursday to Sunday shifts, but we had a girl call in sick tonight. She might be here. Check back around nine."

Kensi thanked her and after looking around one last time, etching the layout of the place in her mind, she headed out. Sam was waiting for her against the car, parked a block away.

"Blue's there until 2000. And Deeks will be happy to know they have quite the party package." He opened the door and got in as his current partner made a noise.

Kensi snorted as she slid into the passenger seat. "Right, anyway, we got lucky. May might be in tonight around 2100, so Deeks and Callen can come check it out."

"And with the stories we've told them, it won't seem odd if we're here."

Kensi nodded at that and lent against the head rest while she called ops to inform them of what they had found.

Deeks and Callen noticed quickly that while the code the SSgt had provided to decipher the notes worked, a lot of it was still in short hand. However, with what the man told them about their contents, they were able to figure out the rest. It seemed the group had separated from another. They wanted to make their own mark and not be held under the banner of the other. They had managed to figure out that someone from within the splintered group was now having second thoughts and had reached out to an old friend in the military. That friend had contacted Tash.

The notes were quite detailed in that there were names of people he suspected, places he had found that some of them used and/or worked at that could give them access to what they needed. Tash was compiling more evidence before he took it to his superior.

"He must have either been noticed,…" Deeks started, moving another mention of a place into the 'of interest' pile on the screen.

"Or asked the wrong person the wrong question." Callen answered, sliding a name into the correct pile, "Saltine, Aieuls, Laments."

"Lemons, Saline, Athletes." Deeks answered a second later as he shifted another 'place of interest'.

"No A in lemons, Deeks." Callen said, separating the names pile so he could see if he recognised any.

"Damn." The shaggy haired man looked at his leader then put a mark next him on the table. The scoreboard showed that Callen was in front by quite a margin, 60 to 21. "You shouldn't use foreign words, Callen, that's just cheating."

"That's what I said." Sam spoke as he and Kensi joined them. "Cheater."

"No, the rules don't state that they _have_ to be in English." Callen said as he straightened. "Well?"

Sam and Kensi told them what they knew and the stories they had told. Callen nodded, told Kensi and Sam to look over the names and see if they knew any while he updated Hetty and Director Vance. He told Deeks to contact Captain Bates and clue him in.

NCIS:LA NCIS:LA NCIS:LA

"Good work, Agent Callen. I've already informed Homeland and the FBI. They're getting ready to take them in on outstanding warrants that many of them have. How's it looking on your end?" Vance asked as he leaned back in his chair. Callen could see a little of the stress leave him as he told him that Deeks was informing the LAPD and getting them on-board.

"We're tracking the ones based on the east coast. As soon as you find out how the SSgt was drugged and by whom, we'll take them down. We can't risk them discovering the surveillance, so you have at most 48 hours, after that, we arrest them. Any progress on finding out who wanted the SSgt drugged?" Vance asked once Callen had told him all they had.

"Not yet, we're hoping to find the woman he was last seen with. She might be able to tell us what happened." Callen answered from his position leaning against the table in the ops room. "If we don't get anything tonight, we might have to stake the place out."

He headed back down once Vance had cut the connection as Hetty called out to him for wardrobe. The others were ready, all they were waiting for was him. Just as they were heading out the door, Deeks came back in from taking a phone call from his captain. A man had been arrested and wasn't saying anything unless he spoke to Deeks. Normally he would leave the guy to sit in prison until the morning; but he was one of Deeks' more reliable CI's. He also happened to live in the same area that SSgt Tash had found several suspected members of the terror group.

"Go, see if he knows anything. Kensi's plan was to wait for this May person to show up, and you being with her might have raised questions." Callen said, after a moments thought. "We can cover her." Just as they split, he called back out "Return all that to Hetty before you go."

"Planning on it, the guy may come through more than most, but he smells like a dump." Deeks called back over his shoulder as he headed back in to change into his own clothes.

The night was a bust for Callen and the others. May never showed. Callen and Sam talked to the owner of the place and mentioned that a couple of marine buddies had told them about the bar as a possible place to have a bachelor party and what it would entail.


	4. Planning and waiting

Here's another chapter. Enjoy. Got about another four chapters to go and an epilogue.

* * *

As the four of them reconvened back at ops the next morning, Callen started with a briefing on what he and Sam thought of the owners. "Lennon seemed a little too interested in getting us to have that party with him."

Sam handed Callen his usual bacon breakfast as he continued. "Especially when we mentioned that we were from Pendleton."

"What about Luke?" Kensi asked as she put her stuff down and opened her breakfast burrito.

"Unlike his brother, he was more concerned about telling us what they could provide in terms of entertainment." Sam continued, looking irritated at both Callen and Kensi's breakfast choices. "Of the two, I'd be more inclined to look into the older brother, Lennon."

Callen nodded his agreement around a mouthful of bacon and scrambled eggs. After swallowing, he turned to Kensi and asked what she found out.

"May started there about six weeks ago. She keeps to herself mostly, but she did mention to one of the others that she has a mother back in Canada. Dad is from Sydney, died when she was a kid, finished school there before returning to her mother in Canada when she got sick." Kensi managed to speak around her burrito, causing another glare from Sam. "One of the others mentioned that she could have come from Lennon's club there because she knew her way around."

"What makes them think that?" Sam asked after swallowing his mouthful.

"It might be because all of their clubs have the same layout, land size and permits permitting." Nell said as she joined them. She smiled as Callen gave her a second box hiding under his.

"What's that?" Eric asked, standing beside her as she lifted the lid.

"An omelette on bacon." She answered.

"Really G?" Sam asked, his eyebrows rising. "That's who you got that for?"

Nell sighed as she opened the lid and steam rose from it. Inside, Eric could see scrambled eggs sitting on several pieces of bacon, arranged to look like a plate. It was covered in cheese and sauce. Eric grimaced and backed away, taking a container from Deeks.

"This is more my style." The others looked on as he unwrapped it and revealed a normal looking burrito. "Poached egg, lettuce, tomato, cottage cheese and those little spade shaped leaves." His face was pulled into his thinking face as he tried to remember.

"Spinach?" Sam supplied. The team chuckled as Eric's face lit up and nodded before he tucked into his wrap.

"Deeks, that is totally not the type of thing I would have thought you would buy, being something completely normal." Callen said as he finished he meal, wiping his hands on the napkin and tossing it and the container into the bin next to him.

"Who said I bought it." Deeks replied, biting into another one.

While the others finished, Callen took the tablet from Eric and looked at the layout of the other clubs.

"It's what makes their clubs different. They have set them up like a retail chain, with the same layout in every store. When they bought 'Bounce', they guttered it and changed the layout to match the others. Might have to look into how they managed to get it done in six weeks." Nell spoke up as she leaned over Callen's shoulder and pointed everything out.

"Kickbacks to cut corners?" At her nod her continued. "We'll inform the building inspectors. That could be why the others think she came from one of his other places." Callen said. "Any word back from your queries?"

"As soon as I'm finished here, I'm headed up to see." She held up the last of her breakfast.

Callen nodded and turned his attention to Deeks. "Anything from your stinky CI?"

Deeks pulled a face as he finished his breakfast, ten-pointing the wrapper into Callen's wastebasket from the edge of Sam's desk. "Yeah." He wiped his hands on a napkin and pulled out some pages he printed off at the station before he headed home that night. "He literally bumped into some of them. He's a former army ranger and spent some time in Afghanistan after the invasion. And before you ask, no I don't know his real name. He told me when he became my CI." He saw Sam about to ask if he knew the guy's name. "He learnt enough Arabic to get the job done, and I guess it stuck."

Deeks went on to tell then that 'Ranger' had been doing his weekly rounds of collecting bottles to take to the recycling facility when he turned a corner and crashed into a man. After apologising to him and helping him stand, he noticed a smell that he hadn't come across since his time in the army; a mix of diesel fuel and ammonium with a hint of gunpowder. He pretended to continue on his way until the man and his companion turned a corner then followed them.

"They're holed up in a disused car shop. Ranger said it looked like they had been there a while. He spotted enough parts to build a bomb big enough to level a block." He handed out some of the sheets he had printed off. "He's a decent artist and managed to draw a couple of faces for us. I ran them through FRS and came up with these names."

He handed out more paper. These were colour photographs that matched the drawings pretty closely. Moreover, the names matched some mentioned in the SSgt's notes.

"There's a half dozen that he could see. He didn't want to risk hanging around any longer so he went off in search of a patrol car that could arrest him when he tried to break into a car. He did these for me while telling me everything." He waved at the pictures he had handed out.

"He see anything that could point to a target? Anything that indicates that they are aware that the SSgt is onto them?" Callen said as he sifted through the information that Deeks had gathered together the night before. While the man maintained that his hair was 'styled by pillow' and continuously tried to bring 'healthy' foods for the rest of them to try, he knew how to mine for information _. It must had taken several hours for him to put this together, meaning he most likely crashed at the station, rather than go home the night before_ – Callen thought.

"Not from what he was able to see, he didn't want to linger and have them get suspicious." Deeks shook his head as he retook his seat.

Callen looked through the information one last time before closing the file. "OK. How long would it take for you to get into your homeless clothes?" He ignored the groan that emitted from their partners. While the outside of the jacket smelled like a bin, the inside was surprisingly clean, something he had noticed when he wore it several years ago. The smell coming from the outside more than masked the cleanliness hidden inside; hence why Deeks had been annoyed at Callen wearing it. After a while, and Callen kept the secret of the clean inside, Deeks had forgiven him.

"Seeing as I've already shaved this morning, tomorrow." Deeks perked up at wearing one of his favourite jackets, undercover or not. His face crumpled a moment later as a thought popped into his head because of an early night; "That means I miss the strippers again, no fair Callen."

Callen chuckled at the man's grumbling, "We're not going back in, not until this May person shows up again. Deeks, I want you and Kensi head over and set up surveillance this evening, if she shows, see if you can get her to go with you Kens."

"Mr Callen, we've had some activity on the names we set up for you and Mr Hannah." Hetty said as she came over to join her lead team. "It seems that someone has taken an interest in the two of you."

"Don't you mean Lt Makepeace and Sgt Reeds?" Callen smirked at her.

"What sort of activity?" Sam asked, breaking their attention before Hetty could respond to his remark, which would then lead to several comments from both.

"The wrong kind. It seems they've been looking into their bank accounts and partnership status. As you know, Mr Hannah, we've set Sgt Reeds up as a respectful marine, recently engaged to your high school sweetheart; hence the reason for asking about the bachelor party package. Raising two children, one of whom is the daughter to another woman."

"Close enough to the truth, while at the same time, making it look like they won't be able to get him to keep anything from his fiancé." Sam answered. "Since she knows about the other woman, he'll be more inclined to tell her of anything that may or may not happen."

"Precisely."

"While his best friend, Lt Makepeace, has a secret back account and a hidden mistress in San Francisco." Callen leaned forward "What have they done with the information once they found out that we're part of the intelligence branch at Pendleton?"

"Nell?" Hetty turned to her young protégé as she returned from gathering her and Eric's tablets from the ops room.

Nell slid what she had onto the screen behind Sam and Deeks as she spoke. "Well, they seemed to mine what they could publicly about your covers then they posted a summary on what looks like a site for blackmail information. They also stated that they have been successful on getting even more from previous targets with them being none the wiser."

"By using Stalemate." Sam concluded.

"Right. Now from what we can tell, one of the names that Deeks found out matches with one of the names that looked at the information." Eric brought up footage from an internet café. "Now who ever that was also contacted a number of other people using the same computer. Whatever group they were a part of, never got around to teaching them the importance of never using the same computer."

A few taps on his screen and he had over a dozen people on the tv. "These are the people he contacted. The owner of the café noticed unusual activity on the computer whenever this guy showed up, so he kept a record of everything done on it. When we contacted him to see if he had anything, he handed it over."

"We've managed to find the majority of these men, however, there are still five or six that we've had no luck tracking." Nell highlighted the men as she read out their names and what their suspected rank was. The team could see that the ones that Ranger had laid eyes on were the ones missing.

"Tash's notes might be able to help with that. He might also be able to give us something that isn't in the notes. Sam." He nodded to Kensi and Deeks to get started on the notes while he and Sam headed to the hospital.

Throughout the day, word trickled in as each member of the group was found and put under surveillance until the only the ringleaders were left. Not wanting to tip them off, no one was getting arrested until Deeks was under and able to confirm their whereabouts.

The day passed slowly as the team looked through the notes and information and sent LAPD officers, NCIS and a couple of FBI agents to places indicated within them.

Late afternoon arrived, sending Kensi and Deeks to the club. Deeks didn't even start up the license plate game, which showed how deep in thought he was.

"You ok?" Kensi asked when he didn't make a comment on the women starting to trickle into the club to start the night shift.

"Yeah, just thinking about the area the repair shop is in."

Kensi nodded and settled back into her seat, knowing how focused her partner got when he was about to go undercover.

They were there for about two hours when May showed up. Unfortunately, Blue was at the door, and without knowing who was in on the drugging, there was no way Callen was going to let Kensi into the club alone. So they settled for plan B, which was to wait until May finished for the night.


	5. New Player

Its Saturday, so here's another chapter of Stalemate. I hope you're enjoying it. Only three more to go, and the epilogue.

* * *

"There's our girl." Kensi said as she got out of the car with Deeks following; several hours later. As they headed across the street, one of the girls that Kensi spoke to before, spotted her and called out. Deeks kept going, as though he hadn't heard, while Kensi distracted her to allow him to talk to May alone.

Just as he caught up to her, several things happened at once.

One, Blue's partner spotted Deeks following May just as they entered an alley and called out to them.

Two, Deeks gently rested a hand on May's shoulder to get her attention.

Three, May spun around and looped her hands behind Deeks' head and pulled him further into the alley.

Deeks was so shocked at her sudden closeness that he didn't even resist as she kissed him; and he never felt her remove his earwig nor lift his wallet and sidearm.

"Hey baby." She said as the bouncer reached them and pulled Deeks from her grasp.

"May. This guy giving you trouble?" He asked as he restrained him.

"Get you mitts off my boyfriend, Ty." May said as she walked behind Ty, while he placed himself between the two.

"You know Mr Lennon doesn't like you to have partners." Ty said as he started to frisk Deeks.

"Relax, the more men that ogle at me, the hotter I get in Tristian's eyes, isn't that right baby?" May said as she slipped the earwig in and started to flip through the wallet. With Ty checking Deeks' ankles, she held up his gun before putting it into her backpack. She could hear several voices coming from the earwig and was able to figure out which voice belonged to the team leader and the detective's partner. The others she could figure out later.

Deeks raised his eyebrows in surprise as May first held up his gun before stowing it away, then raised her eyebrows and his LAPD Detective badge before dropping it into the pack as well when Ty stood. He then realised that he couldn't hear anything from the earwig, nor could he feel it.

Flipping her hair, May then rounded Ty and looped her arm around Deeks' waist. "You finished feeling him up? Or should I tell Felix that the rumours about you being gay are true?" She said, leaning into him, and not giving an inch to Ty. When the big man snorted, May nodded, "Figured. Come on Tris, you owe me a brinner." With that she turned Deeks away and led him down the alley. Once they were out of ear shot of Ty, who had returned to the door, she tapped the earpiece like a pro.

"To the Detective's partner, Kensi, pick us up at the end of the alley. To his team leader, Callen, I really hope you have an explanation as to why LAPD is involved in this." She then pulled the earpiece and handed it back to Deeks, along with his gun and wallet. The last thing she heard was Callen telling Kensi to bring her to the boatshed. Really hoping she hadn't stumbled into a group of corrupt cops taking her somewhere to kill her, she readied her gun in the backpack as she climbed into the car when it pulled up.

Deeks and Kensi looked at each other as May settled into the back of the car. Any questions they may have had, Callen had said could wait until they were all together. He and Sam were going to meet them there.

It was almost two in the morning when they all met at the boat shed. Callen and Sam were already there when Kensi, Deeks and May pulled up. The three headed inside to find Callen making tea for all while Sam lent against a post.

"Agent Callen, my partner, Sam Hannah. And you've met Agent Kensi Blye and our LAPD liaison, Detective Marty Deeks." He was about to ask for her name when a sound made him stop.

Not sensing anything threatening from the two men, nor from the pair she had ridden in with, May relaxed and let the hammer of the gun she had been holding click back into place.

Callen raised his eyebrows when he heard the sound, tensing until she removed her hand from the bag. "Expecting trouble?"

"Your man here is an LAPD detective, yet his partner carries herself like an agent, as do you pair. I've been caught out before. This not a main base of operations, so I would hazard a guess at an interrogation/debrief area." Pointing at Callen she continued as she settled her bag on her back. "You may be the team leader, however, I heard the voice of an older lady who is in charge of your whole unit, one Henrietta Lang."

Callen's eyebrows raised even higher at the mentioned of Hetty's name. May looked to be about thirty years old, yet she acted much older in the way she carried herself. For her to know of Hetty and be able to recognise her by voice alone, she must have dealt with her in the past. The screen beside Callen lit up as Hetty appeared from ops.

"Your assumptions are correct young lady, however, I do not have any recollection of ever having met you." Hetty's confusion was clear on her face.

"We never met face to face. It was a series of phone conversations over the course of six weeks while I was a street rat in the early 2000s." May spun one of the chairs around and sat, using the back of the chair to rest her chin on. The look would have seemed casual, were it not for the fact she was only wearing a tight mini strapless denim dress with her pink outfit poking out the top, a small jacket and insanely high heels.

"Ah yes, you contacted the LAPD because you saw a man that had been on the news for holding a busload of children hostage before he vanished, taking some of them with him; several of whom were the children of Navy personnel, which put me in charge." Hetty nodded as she remembered. "I don't believe you ever mentioned a name at the time. Am I correct in guessing that May is not it?"

"Not it's not. Gizelle Brooks, Interpol. And I'm really hoping you guys are NCIS." May, now Gizelle, looked around the group, before settling on Hetty on the screen.

"Well Miss Brooks, I'll contact Interpol in the morning to verify. Yes, we are NCIS, special operations, based here in Los Angeles. In the meantime, I think it was high time we all went to bed. Especially Mr Deeks, as he has an early start in the, sorry in a couple of hours." She smiled at that as Deeks groaned while the others chuckled.

Gizelle nodded and said, "The only person who's going to know about me is Director Simon Krouse." After a nod from Hetty, she stood as Callen asked if she needed a ride back to her car.

"That would be great if I had parked it at the bar. It's back at my apartment. I prefer the bus. I spotted a stop a few blocks from here." She said as she pulled off her backpack and jacket.

"Dressed like that, someone's going to think you're working." He said.

Gizelle's only reply was to seemingly pull the outfit apart. The tear that appeared seemed to stop below her hips, whereupon she let one side drop. It hit her leg and the small hidden magnets inside the seams closed around it. After doing the same with the other side, she had turned her mini dress into a pair of flared three quarter jeans in the space of a few seconds.

The others whistled as she then pulled a tank top out of the bag and, after settling her jacket back on, she looked normal.

"Now that is something we need to look into Hetty." Deeks said as he was ushered out the door by his partner for a few hours shut eye before playing the homeless bum.

"Indeed." Hetty replied, her mind already turning on how she could create something for Kensi. She sensed that Brooks wasn't going to tell her anything about it tonight, so she set a time for them all to meet back at the boatshed at 10am. It would allow most of her team at least six hours shut eye.

* * *

A/N: And there we go. I must have a thing for bringing in people from other agencies. I don't know how Interpol works, so I hope it all makes sense.


	6. More Information

Because of the shortness of the other chapter, something I only noticed after I posted it, I decided to post a second one. Enjoy!

As always, I don't own the characters from the show.

* * *

Ten am came quickly. Callen, Sam and Kensi had arrived at around 0830 to get the information that Nell and Eric had found on Gizelle. Only it wasn't much. It seemed that the only person who knew about her, really was the director she mentioned. Simon Krouse didn't have all that much to add.

"Born in Australia in April, 1988. I can't find her birth certificate, only the word of Krous, who claims to have seen it. Apparently one of the first things Brooks did when she turned 18, was erase any information about herself. We've got very little on her other than what her director told us. After her mother dies while in the US visiting her father, she practically vanishes. The records Hetty collected at the time from Child Services don't have much other than she never stayed with a family longer than a week, when they were able to find her." Nell started.

Callen looked at the screen at the only photo of a thirteen-year-old girl, bag straps visible over her shoulders; standing next to the Route 66 sign at Santa Monica Pier. She looked a little tired, but determined. "She allowed them to get her. And the only reason she stayed a week was because it was just long enough to rest." If he thought him being in the system gave him the skills to be who he was today, she had to be on an entire different level. She had gone and deleted herself from every database she could think of if Nell, Eric and Hetty were unable to find more.

"I've got mentions of her from the FBI, Homeland and the CIA as well as several overseas agencies, the earliest from 2004. Seems she's been popping up since she was sixteen, claiming she was a couple of years older. All say she is an outstanding _freelance_ agent. She never stays with them for long. However, Interpol and the FBI are the two she has spent time with the longest. She disappeared in 2011 for 18 months before popping up in London. No explanation that I have access to as to why." Eric said as he got word back from other agencies about her. "She has a clearance level that is higher than mine and Nell's. She might even be as high as yours, Hetty."

"What on earth motivated her to want to become an agent at such a young age." Hetty mused.

"The deaths of my mother and her father here in the US in 1998." Gizelle said as she stood in the hallway.

"An extraordinary event I'm sure, but how does that translate to you deciding to become an agent at that age. Not to mention that by the time we spoke, you were already well versed in the practice."

Gizelle sat at the table and accepted the coffee handed to her by Callen as she spoke. "One of the officers that attended that night spoke within earshot of me. He said that if they had been allowed to put someone under with that gang, they would have gotten a warning about it and been able to clear the store. At that moment, I vowed to become just that type of person. Able to go in without the need for approval, gather intelligence and vanish without them even knowing that they were being spied on. By not attaching myself to any one agency, but having the ability to contact them and be believed? It ensured that something like that never happened again. For the most part that idea worked."

"And the skills? There's no way as a ten year-old, you could have found someone to teach you." Callen asked, looking at Hetty as he said that.

"True, but your forgetting, the cold war had only ended less than a decade before. There were books everywhere on the things spies did and how they did it. I got noticed while working with you Ms Lang by someone at the Consulate that he took refuge in. Turned out to be CIA. They got me through school. Would have been collage too, were it not for the fact they hung me out to dry in 2007; two years before I finished it." The others heard how much she despised the Agency, it sounded a lot like their own.

"What made them do that?" Sam asked.

"I helped an undercover FBI agent I found who was investigating the same gang at the same time I was. His cover had been blown and I managed to get him out without breaking my own. It was what I always did, help anyone I found undercover, regardless of where they were from. The CIA didn't like that idea."

"I'll bet they didn't. I take it you then worked for the FBI after that?" Callen said, knowing how the agency operated.

"Yep, for about two years. They gave me the freedom to do as needed. And the ability to create some pretty interesting contacts. I slipped to Interpol after I got noticed by a senior officer, Miles, a year after he had started a taskforce. I have been bouncing between the two ever since."

"And you created quite the legend in that time." Hetty spoke up from the screen.

"I've been compared to your Agent Callen for the past couple of years. Nice to finally meet the man I've been told I've surpassed." Brooks took the cup of coffee Callen passed her and saluted him.

Unable to think of anything to say to that, Callen broached the topic of what brought the club Bounce to her and Interpol's attention.

"As you know, the McAllen brothers took over the bar after subtly pressuring the previous owners out. Nothing that would attract the attention of the police, but bribing their suppliers to hike prices up and other similar tactics did the trick." Brooks pulled out several files and a notebook that she flipped to a page.

"The older brother, Lennon, owns several clubs overseas back in Europe, all of them near places that people with high security clearances hang out. The US is just the latest target pool." She handed over the files. "They're under a different name that no one knew about, let alone realised, until I started to work for him in Canada, a couple of months ago."

Callen and the rest of the team looked over the files as she spoke. They contained everything that Lennon McAllen had been up to.

"You've managed to link him to the security breach at Heathrow Airport last year?" Callen asked, slightly shocked that he hadn't been arrested yet.

"Only last night. Your IT personnel sent word out about the unusual drug and it matched up with what had been used on several people there and in other countries. Now knowing where the drug came from and who's responsible for the breaches, we should be able to get a warrant based on that." Brooks said as she finished her coffee. The rest of the team sat in silence for a while as they read the papers in front of them, all aware that those under surveillance would be getting arrested later that afternoon; the 48-hour deadline was closing.

Sam looked over at the woman beside him. She looked no older than thirty, yet her eyes and the way she carried herself revealed a life well lived, and not without dangers, if the scar peeking out from the collar of her shirt was anything to go by. The way she acted reminded Sam of how Callen used to act when they first met. Sure of herself, controlled, unwilling to let anyone get close. Even now, she had moved her chair away from him slightly and back from the table.

 _All in all, a woman who knows how to handle herself, yet does not fully trust others._ He thought.

Callen peeked over the file Brooks had given them, noticing Sam giving her the same look. She was literally the female version of him. Only she had chosen to become a Ghost, whereas it simply happened for him. She had the same sass he did if the way she handled herself last night was anything to go by. The ability to blend in, to become anyone, to vanish; had been something she had carefully crafted, with no formal training, on her own. His respect for her went up even more.

 _A civilian woman with the strength to do what trained agents fear, a rarity in any language,_ he mused.

Kensi glanced at the woman who was close to her own age. Suffering the same tragedy, Kensi's father, Brooks' mother; made her realise that if things had turned out differently, she could have ended up where Brooks was. She had joined NCIS in the hope of finding out what happened to her father. Brooks had become what she was so that others would never go through the same pain of losing someone because law enforcement didn't have the information to stop it.

 _Two different ways to go about the same job; the only difference? She's been doing this since she was ten,_ she ponded.

Hetty read the copy of the file that Brooks had given them via a thumb drive inserted into the TV. She looked at the young woman. After speaking to her in 2002, She had tried to locate the young woman. Callen's glare at her would have been warranted, had she been able to find her.

It seems that after hearing about the bus hostage situation, she had come to LA to try and see if she could do anything. After that, she did as she was training herself to do, find a way to get him arrested. The man still had several of the children hidden somewhere. Brooks had followed him after the man had spotted and shaken all other tails, using the other street kids to keep an eye on him. After finding out where he was keeping them, she had waited until he had left and alerted the authorities. When he returned the next day, she made him think that one of them escaped by running from the warehouse just as he arrived. She led him right into a squad of police that had video footage from Brooks showing him with the kids the day before.

Hetty had been unable to find her after that. The officers watching her were found locked in their patrol car, a block from child services. Seems she had gotten a hold of one of their guns, tied them up with duck-tape, then wrapped the tape around the car to secure the doors.

Until last night, Hetty had not been able to find her since, not something that has happened all too often.

 _A woman who even at such a young age could pull off a vanishing act that even the most seasoned agents have trouble doing. She is a force to be reckoned with._

* * *

There we go. I may or may not be able to update next week as I am going on holiday, but I will do my best.


	7. Finialising the Plan

A/N: Well, I didn't know if I would be able to post this, see as I am currently in Marseille, France. But I've managed it. There is one more chapter after this one, then an epilogue. I hope you enjoy.

As always, the characters of NCIS Los Angeles belong to CBS and Shane Brennen.

* * *

Hetty first broke the silence that surrounded the group. "I think we have enough here to take down the older brother, Lennon, however, I don't see much information on the younger, Luke."

Gizelle finished her coffee before replying, "That's because I don't think he has any idea what his older brother is doing. He was released and he's doing a remarkable effort to get straight and I believe Lennon is keeping him away from this in a weird way to achieve it."

"You don't think he's involved in this in any way?" Callen asked as he closed the file.

She paused a moment, thinking about how to phrase her response, "Occasionally, the brothers partake in the girls. I haven't been there long, but Luke's been with me a couple of times. I asked him a few questions and from his answers, he hasn't got a clue."

Callen's consideration of Brooks went up more. Not many agents would allow themselves to be in that sort of situation. "That could have been dangerous. Did you have backup in the club?"

"No Agent Callen." Her voice low with understanding and a touch of sadness, "I've trained myself to be able to handle any situation, including instances where I'm butt naked." She looked to Sam's raised eyebrows and Kensi's shocked face. "I work alone. The few times I've been with teams have never ended well. The only reason I'm working with you now, is because Krouse is friends with your Director Vance; whom I was told is a good man, as are the men and women he employs."

Callen, for the second time in as many hours, didn't have anything to say to that. So he nodded and asked her what her plan was. "You couldn't have known who was going to start investigating the club, so what made you pull off what you did last night?"

"No," she sat her cup down. "That Marine, I knew that they were going to go after him, because he wasn't taking any interest in the women. I tried to get him to leave, but when they went to take him, I insisted on going with them."

She went on to tell them that she was with them when they integrated him, using Stalemate. They gave him another drug, the name of which made everyone shudder, when they hadn't gotten anything useful by Sunday night. A stronger and nastier version of Scopolamine. It was then that he had a reaction. Gizelle had an EpiPen in her bag for a sting allergy, hit him with it and convinced the men to let her drop him off at the hospital.

"Were any of the McAllen's with you?" Sam asked.

"No, but I know it was the older one, Lennon. He was real interested when he heard from the mics in the VIP rooms where the rest of the team was from."

"Hence the reason Tash was drugged." Kensi said.

"I knew that NCIS would get involved once it was discovered who he was. I didn't know of a group of you here. I was only told of the office in San Diego. I wasn't expecting someone to be asking after me so fast." She looked over at Kensi at that. "I knew it was only a matter of time before you came back."

"What's Interpol's plan now?" Callen asked as he closed the file.

"Their part is done. Once it was confirmed that NCIS was involved, I was to be assigned to you and your team for the duration of the case. I spoke with you director last night on the way to the bus station. He confirmed it." She saw their faces, "I'm a free-lance agent. I'm assigned to where ever I'm needed. I'm still a part of the case, as in, I have an in with the club. One that Agent Blye won't be able to achieve, at least not for a long time."

"Hetty?" Callen turned to his boss.

"She speaks the truth, Mr Callen. Miss Brooks, while not one of us; is already in this case, whether we like it or not. She has already, as she has stated, created an opening for us. I suggest we use it. If all goes well with Mr Deeks' undercover operation, we should have the location of the rest of the new terror group ringleaders by tonight. After that, you and Mr Hannah can enter the club."

"Impressive covers, Lennon was real impressed with whoever is playing Lt Makepeace."

"That would be me." Callen said as he returned from replenishing everyone's cups. After that he went to the head, missing the question from Brooks.

"That really Callen? The Ghost?" She asked of Sam.

Sam looked at her, thinking back to last night and her remark that she had surpassed him. "Yeah, I thought you knew him?"

"I know _of_ him. He had left The Agency years before I joined, but I quickly got referenced to him a lot. By the time I joined Interpol, I heard that I quite possibly had surpassed him." She looked down the walkway he had disappeared down. "No first name?"

"Not one that any of us use." Sam answered. "By the time he was told about it, we only called him Callen."

"Except you, Sam, you still call him G." Kensi spoke up.

"Different to what you were expecting?" Hetty asked from the screen.

"Shorter, broader, definitely more down to earth than what they told me about him. They gave me the impression of him being a tall string bean."

"What were they saying?" Kensi asked. Anyone saying anything about Callen in the negative deserved a good thumping.

"I think they didn't like his confidence. From what I've seen, he is good at what he does, knows it but doesn't let it go to his head, like they were implying. I also think it was because he was and still is able to get into and out of situations that they can't. Simply because he can adapt to a situation in a heartbeat, while they are so ridged in how they do things, it allows for no flexibility." Brooks turned her head slightly as though listening for something before she started talking about the case again. A moment later, Callen re-joined them.

"You mentioned Deeks going undercover?" She asked as Callen retook his seat opposite her.

"Yes, he is quite good at doing the homeless gig." He said. "He's keeping an eye on a few people that we believe bought information from the McAllen's."

"What sort of information?"

Callen looked to Hetty for the OK before talking. "Information on how close the SSgt was getting to finding out about a new terror group."

"What's your plan?" Brooks knew the two men who were planning to enter the bar under the guise of holding a bachelor party, but beyond that, she didn't know what their plan was.

"We're hoping by the end of the day we'll have a location on all the men involved and arrest them. After that, we're entering the club and seeing what we can find out. It's got CCTV, meaning that we have to get access from inside."

"I can help with that. They're currently looking for a new tech. They're last one got a job overseas with one of Lennon's buddies. If you have someone in mind, and show them a little of what they can do, they'll get the job."

The team looked at each other at that. "We'll work something out." Hetty said.

"If you want to sell the fact you're having a party with some work mates, you're going to need work mates." Brooks said, standing and stretching out a few kinks before heading over to grab a bottle of water from the fridge. Drinking half of it before sitting back down, she listened as the others discussed the rest of the plan.

"We can use some of the others from here." Sam said, naming a few people they had used before on other stings.

The rest of the morning passed quickly and after a quick lunch, Brooks left them to get a nap before she had to start work that night. Callen and the others planned the night, heading back to ops to get ready. The clock ticked over and go time arrived for the takedown of the terrorists. Deeks was back at ops when the group he had been watching was taken in, all other people tied to them were arrested without a hitch, only a couple of minor injuries to some of the officers.

* * *

And there you have it. One more and an epilogue.


	8. The Takedown

A/N: Well, I'm back. I'm sorry about not posting last weekend. Being on a plane flying back to Oz put a crimp in those plans. This is the last chapter before the epilogue. I hope you enjoy.

* * *

A couple of hours later, saw the Los Angeles branch of NCIS entering the club. Kensi as May's friend again, Callen, Sam and several other field agents from the office as well as Deeks, once Blue had finished for the night.

It was close to midnight when Brooks entered the stage. The scar they had noticed had been craftily hidden by a henna tattoo. She had been on the floor a couple of times, speaking to Kensi, dancing with Callen and a few of the others in the group. She informed them that Callen would most likely be drugged after she was on stage, around midnight. It was just as Brooks left the stage that Callen started to feel woozy. He tapped Sam on the shoulder and told him to be ready. A moment later, Brooks sidled up to him and gently steered him away; seemingly without the others in the group noticing. And of those that did, they wolf whistled.

Sam watched as Brooks lead Callen away, stopping only to pick up a couple of drinks.

"He's telling her to give him the drink in her right hand. My guess, it has the drug in it." Kensi spoke up suddenly as she read the lips of the bartender.

"Then why did she drink it and hand him the other one?" Eric asked as he watched the security feed Nell was streaming to him.

Nell had gone in earlier that afternoon, after Eric had hacked into the server where the camera footage was stored and shut down the cameras for a few minutes. She got the job after she arrived and said she could turn them back on. She was watching from the security office, unable to say anything thru the earwig as both brothers were in the room with her. She had managed to distract them for the moment Brooks had drunk the glass meant for Callen, so they had no idea that whatever they were going to ask him, he would be able to lie.

The plan was that they would let Callen and Brooks be taken wherever the interrogating happened and once Lennon and whoever else was involved arrived, they would all be arrested. And it would have worked, were it not for members of Tash's unit coming in at that moment, demanding to see Lennon.

"They must have figured out Lennon was behind everything." Kensi said as she got behind the men, hoping to get them out before the plan was even more ruined.

"We got bigger problems, Brooks is having a seizure." Callen suddenly called out. The younger woman had collapsed into his arms a few minutes after taking the drink apparently meant for him, if he had heard Kensi and Sam right. With him being slightly drugged from before, despite the water Brooks had given him, he was struggling to hold both her and himself upright. "Scratch that, she's having an allergic reaction; her lips are swelling and turning blue." Callen amended his statement as he recognised the symptoms. He managed to lower her to the ground as Tash's unit confronted Lennon and his brother. Seeing her bag on her shoulder, Callen franticly dug through it and was rewarded with an EpiPen pen, which he promptly prepped and jabbed into her thigh.

"Lennon, we know you drugged Tash!" A voice rang out that Kensi and Deeks recognised as belonging to Tash 2IC, Rumsfell. The man looked small against Lennon's 6"4' height, but he wasn't going to let the man get away with kidnapping and almost killing his friend. Deeks didn't hear the club owner reply as all hell broke loose as Tash's team set upon him and the bouncers that had been called up. He and a couple of the other agents from the 'bachelor party' managed to get the men separated, after a couple of the marines recognised him and pulled Rumsfell off the owner.

"Enough!" He rounded on McAllen and grabbed his wrists while at the same time, flashing his LAPD badge. "You're under arrest on suspicion of selling military secrets obtained through nefarious means." He looked pointedly at the intel team, telling them to back off and let him and his team do their job. The majority of them got the message, but Rumsfell made one last effort to charge at the man.

A gun went off, time seemed to slow and everybody froze.

Callen had managed to get Brooks on her feet at her instance, the EpiPen doing its work; the pair were now looking in the direction of the shot, holding each other up.

Sam and Kensi were trying to keep everyone back and had managed to get the more level-headed members of Tash's unit to help. They drew fast and rounded toward the sound.

The others agents were doing their best to help where needed but had also drawn their weapons.

Nell gasped in the security office, holding her hand over her mouth in shock.

Hetty and Eric in Ops looked franticly over the footage to see who had been hit and who had fired.

Deeks stood stock sill, assessing himself. The shot had sounded way too close and he thought he had been hit.

Time resumed its normal speed, with many of the patrons, still inside, now screaming and running to get out. Kensi found the shooter, one of the bouncers; and quickly restrained him while Sam and several of the other agents once again wrangled Tash's unit. The reason, Rumsfell had been hit.

Callen looked at Brooks who leaned against the bar and pushed him in the direction of his partner. "Help him, I'm ok." She sounded horse and still was having trouble breathing.

Deeks kicked Lennon McAllen's knees out from under him and cuffed him to the foot rung at the bar. "Don't even think of going anywhere." He growled before hurrying to Rumsfell's side. He rolled the man over and pressed his hands to the wound. It was a nasty stomach wound, one he hadn't seen before. He spotted the gut, a .45 magnum. _No wonder everyone froze_ , he thought, _it had sounded like a cannon._ He spoke to the man, telling him to hold on. He could hear Callen telling Eric to call for two ambulances, but from the sluggish way Rumsfell was responding to everything around him, he wasn't going to make it.

Sure enough, ten minutes later; three after the paramedics arrived; they pronounced him dead. Callen checked the gun and saw that it contained hollow point rounds. He was dead the minute the bullet made contact. He shook his head and the team hung theirs as Tash's unit started yelling.

The older McAllen had been taken outside and shoved none to gently into a waiting police car. Deeks headed over, spoke to the driver and told them to head for the boatshed. After that he headed back to help Kensi with the witness statements. He caught a slight movement out of the corner of his eye. Callen had just draped his jacket over Brooks' shoulders. She was speaking to him, showing him a piece of paper, but as they had handed their earwigs over to Sam to lock up, he couldn't hear them. Whatever was said and whatever was on the paper, shocked Callen. He looked like he wanted to leave to try and wrap his head around it. Just as Deeks was about to go over and ask if everything was ok, Kensi called out to him.

"Deeks, you coming or not?" He looked at her a moment, and when he turned back to Callen and Brooks, it was as though nothing had happened. Callen looked the same, his face showing nothing but concern for the younger woman. It was as though whatever had caused his shocked expression before had never happened.

"Coming!" He called back. Wondering if Sam had seen anything, he vowed to ask Callen later if everything was ok.

The mood in the boatshed was sombre, as the team contemplated the events of the night. The extra agents brought in for the 'party', were handling the crime scene so the 'A-Team' could escape the onslaught of cameras as paparazzi descended on the area. Sam and Kensi were talking to the older McAllen, wanting to know the names he had sold information to and the names of those he had drugged to get said information. Callen and Deeks were speaking to the younger of the brothers, trying to see just how involved he was in the whole thing.

The partners separated, knowing that Kensi and Sam were pretty scary when they needed to be and it seemed to be having the desired effect. Deeks and Callen, more so Callen; took on Luke, hoping to get him to open up and trust someone who had also had a rough childhood. It seemed to be working as the agent and detective confirmed what they had started to suspect. He had no idea what his big brother was doing.

His buddy from Juvie, Blue, had also been arrested and was singing like a canary, telling the police at the station that Luke was going straight and that Lennon hadn't wanted him involved. The house they did the interrogating at, was owned by Blue's deceased mother under her maiden name, so nothing was tied directly to McAllen.

The bartender who had handed the drink to Brooks had also been arrested, although he had said that Blue had told him who the drug was for. He told detectives about every person he had dosed.

The bouncer that had shot Rumsfell was also talking, telling the police of every person that he knew that was involved in the hopes for a lighter sentence. He had fired blindly, not even realising that he had hit anyone until he saw the Marine go down.

It was at sunset that same day by the time they had everything. Consisting of McAllen, the bartender, the bouncer who had fired the gun, Blue and another girl arrested in Canada for dealing; the small team went to each of the bars owned by McAllen. He did it every year and stayed a few weeks at each. The team would target people and after snagging a few would move on. Brooks had become a part of the team when she had gotten the other girl arrested. McAllen had followed the trail she had left for him and believed that she was in dire need of money. So she became the bait, lured them in and got titbits.

Realising that he had been caught red handed and with Brooks' recordings of everything she had done for him, he told Kensi and Sam everything.

The four of them sighed in contentment as they finished their reports two days later. Deeks noticed that Callen still seemed a little off and was about to call him on it when Sam beat him to the punch.

"What's up with you G.? You've been moody ever since the club." Sam leaned back in his chair, giving Callen the option to answer in front of their co-workers. If not, he would invite him around for dinner and grill him at the same time as a few steaks.

Callen sighed and rubbed a hand over his face. "Brooks." He paused a moment before seeing the look of confusion on the faces of his colleges. "She said that there was no way she could let me take that drug. No matter how much training I've done against those kind of drugs, and now knowing just what is in that cocktail, there's no way I would have been able to withstand it." He leaned forward and rested his chin on his hands and his elbows on the desk.

"She risked her life to make sure that nothing you knew would fall into the wrong hands." Kensi said.

"That's not all, though is it, Mr Callen?" Hetty suddenly and quietly spoke up from between the desks, sensing that there was more to this.

"No. Seeing her like that, watching Rumsfell bleeding out; I don't think I could have been able to stand it if another agent died in my arms."

The others got it then. Not since Renko and Hunter had they lost a member of their team. While Brooks hadn't been with them for long, a few days at most, they felt the same way. And the way Rumsfell had died, had brought back memories of Dom.

While everyone else now understood the hunted look that had been ghosting over their lead agent the last day or so, Deeks knew, he _knew_ that there was something else; and it had to do with what Brooks had told Callen in the early hours of that morning while she sat on the gurney.

The man that had reached out to his military buddy had been caught by the terrorists. After some creative interrogation, the group had found out that Tash had spoken to him. The leader of the group had heard about Lennon from people overseas and had contacted him to see if they could find out what he knew, but Tash had reacted to the cocktail before they could get anything useful. Even though it looked like business as usual, Lennon and the others were planning to leave hours after they were taken down.


	9. Epilouge

So this is a VERY short chapter. And introduction into another story I have in the works introducing the Washington team. I haven't seen anything of DiNozzo's last season with them, so this takes place before he leaves. I know it might be a little out of sync with the air dates, but I make no mention of anything that points to an episode.

* * *

"Well done, Agent Callen." Director Vance said two days later as he finished hearing the lead agent give him a verbal summery of what was in the reports that would be coming in over the next few days. "You'll be pleased to know that none of the operations or contracts McAllen was privy to military wise have been affected. Those that have, are adjusting their timetables or operations. And as for Tash's investigation, not a single person on his list escaped, and every one of them were on watch lists. Some of them are talking, some aren't, but we're getting enough information to find more people and eliminate more threats that the SSgt's unit hadn't found yet."

"Thank you, director." Callen said. "If it hadn't been for Miss Brooks, we might not have been able to do any of this."

Vance noticed something cross Callen's face at the mention of the woman, but it was gone so fast, it might not have been there at all. "Any word on how she's doing?"

"The hospital released her yesterday morning. She's going to be fine. She sent a copy of her report to Hetty, so you'll be getting one alone with the rest of ours."

Again, Vance saw a flash of something. Wondering what it was, yet knowing that Callen wouldn't tell him anyway, he nodded and said his goodbyes before cutting the connection.

He looked up from the computer at the woman in front of him. She sat with her three (almost four)-year-old son, playing on the couch, colouring in a book. Gizelle Brooks looked up as he finished and headed over to him. "He's trying not to show it, but I think he's still trying to wrap his head around it. He know about Michael?" He said to the young woman.

"It's a lot to take in, believe me I know, and no, he doesn't. One thing at a time." She said as she sat, taking a drink of the now semi-warm coffee, shaking her head as though she herself couldn't wrap her head around it any more than Callen. "To find out that the man you've been compared to your entire career is your father. It would be a lot for anybody."


End file.
